Identity Crisis
by surestsmile
Summary: Just because you've got your heart back doesn't mean that you'll get your happy ending too. [Riku, Roxas, post KH2, oneshot]


Disclaimer: I do not own Riku or Roxas fromthe video game series _Kingdom Hearts_.

Identity Crisis

Riku doesn't know why he's doing this, sneaking into Sora's room in the dead of the night. Maybe it's because he doesn't want to admit to himself that he still dreams of yellow eyes and black choking smog and the low baritone laugh. Maybe he wants solid reassurance that this wakefulness is not the dream, and finding another someone to snuggle up against seems to be the best cure for such a dilemma.

Besides, trying to sneak into Kairi's room will earn him an earful of outraged teenage girl, and he knows that Sora doesn't really mind Riku bunking in with him, so long as he's _warm_ and doesn't stick cold toes into bared sides.

So he hauls himself through the soft billowing curtains as lightly as he can, hoping that maybe he can sneak into Sora's bed without waking him, snatch a few more hours of sleep before sneaking away at dawn. 

Instead of finding Sora, however, there is a stranger lying in Sora's bed, and Way To the Dawn appears immediately without him even thinking of it, its voice singing in his heart. The weapon feels far too familiar in his hand, but he ignores the twinge of...of _something_, maybe regret, and swings it towards the boy's throat, snarling out his question.

"Who are you?"

Blue eyes turn to look at him and his throat catches and he's blinking rapidly, because he's seeing two boys at the same time instead of one. Sora's eyes are shuttered closed behind opened blue ones, brunette hair clashing with blonde, black and white clothes overlayed with pale blue duckie print pyjamas. The face that is awake and staring back at him is both foreign and familiar at once, and he finds himself struggling to pull the name from buried memories.

"I'm Roxas," the boy offers without much prompting, and Riku frowns a little.

He's exhaling and inhaling along with Sora, chests rising in sleep-mediated tandem, although Riku knows that Roxas _should_ be breathing faster, after all he's the one being threatened by a keyblade. But in retrospect, so is Sora's own body, and Riku reluctantly lowers his weapon but doesn't send it away.

"What are you doing here?" he hisses, so that he doesn't wake Sora.

"Can I sit up?" Roxas asks very quietly, and it's weird to see lips moving when Sora's aren't, and for a moment Roxas flickers, like a bad television reception. Riku gives a minute nod, and Roxas raises himself up slow, swinging his legs over to the edge of the bed to face Riku.

They look at each other before Riku loses and looks away first, guilt, familiar and bitter and poisonous welling up in his gut. The memory surfaces without warning: the first encounter he had with Roxas, in the rain and hearing the Keyblades sing, stolen keyblades that had rightfully belonged to Sora and all he could see then was red through the black veil. Maybe, if he had known that Roxas was Sora, part of Sora, maybe things wouldn't have gone as badly as they did.

Maybe.

He drags his gaze back to Roxas, who's still looking at him with a placid expression. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that Roxas has curled fingers into the blankets, thumb rubbing absently against a clenched fist. Riku swallows hard at, wondering if he should leave, crawl back out of the window and into his own bed, and forget this rather strange and awkward meeting. Looking at Roxas just reminds him of all the things that happened, memories he doesn't really want to remember.

"I don't know why I'm still here," Roxas murmurs, and Riku looks sharply at him before recalling that he had asked Roxas that question barely minutes before. He stifles the urge to shake his head at his own forgetfulness, but his mind latches on to the words and works furiously.

"Does Sora-"

"He doesn't notice me," Roxas whispers, raising his other hand and turning it around and seeing that he's the shadow within Sora's flesh, weak and fading in and out in the moonlight. Riku looks at him shrewdly through his silver bangs. He doesn't know what he can say to Roxas, "Sorry" seems unfitting, and it appears that Roxas has no ears for apologies either.

Still, he must say something. Somehow.

"Sora thinks about you and Kairi a lot." Roxas continues, mouth wrapping unfamiliarly around their names, making a small sound like a cross between a laugh and a sob. "It's hard to ignore someone else's thoughts when you're constantly brushing up against them and you don't really have words of your own to say, and it's hard to be separate from Sora and be _Roxas_ most of the time. Sometimes I think I might have faded away at last, absorbed wholly into Sora's heart because I'm thinking Sora's thoughts, but then night comes and Sora falls asleep and I'm awake and I'm still here."

He doesn't know why Roxas is telling him this, and somehow he feels ashamed to be listening to Roxas voice his thoughts and his feelings when he's partly responsible for Roxas' present situation. His Keyblade vanishes with a whisper, but Roxas doesn't seem to notice. His eyes have a far away look to them, and it's as though he's forgotten that Riku's even there, words spilling over his lips like a well-rehearsed monologue.

Riku wonders if Roxas has been talking to himself, talking himself through all those nights ever since they came back. When Riku hadn't thought of coming to look for Sora yet, to look for comfort.

"Who am I to you?"

Riku thinks he might hear the faint echo of names that come after that question, _Sora_ and _Naminé_ and _Hayner_ and _Axel_, names of the people who are dead or gone or unreachable, people who had the real answers that Roxas needed to hear. Maybe even his own name too, but Riku knows he has no textbook answer to give.

He doesn't know who Roxas really is, not really. After all he's only met the blond for less than a day's time, under circumstances beyond their own control and he's never really _talked_ with Roxas, so his guess is as good as anyone else's.

But at least he has a name on his lips as a reply, and it's not Sora's.

He half-expects Roxas to cry, or break down, or do something that's sort of like what Sora would do. Roxas fixes him with a blank, pitifully empty look instead, and already that's more Roxas than Sora, and Riku finds his heart aching a little when he makes that distinction. Through the ghost he also sees Sora's own face twisting in discomfort, and unconsciously he takes steps forward until his outstretched hand cups Roxas' shoulder almost gently. It's unbearably tense and it shakes under his touch, and he can't really do anything else except ruffle the strange brunette-blond hair with his other hand in a lame attempt to comfort.

"Roxas."

And he does not (will not) move away when Roxas hesitantly shifts closer, wrapping arms around Riku, gripping fistfuls of old cloth tightly, pressing his face to Riku's stomach, and does not (cannot) wet the front of Riku's rumpled shirt with tears.

-owari-


End file.
